Opteon™ XP40
Refrigerant (R-449A)

Balls Food Stores Improves
Refrigeration Equipment Reliability
While Reducing Their Carbon Footprint
With Opteon™ XP40

Retrofit Highlights“We’re thrilled with the success and ease of the“With R-22 in the low temp

Opteon™ XP40 conversion…We’ve found our R-22

rack, we had a lot of problems

refrigerant solution and will be doing more retrofits towith the demand cooling tripping out…

Opteon™ XP40 soon.”With XP40, the oil is clean as a whistle, andScott Butkovich, Director of Store Development

the demand cooling never turned on.”John Engle, Lead Technician

Balls Food Stores

The Waldinger Corporation“It couldn’t have been simpler. The actual system
conversion took just a few hours and has continued toBackgroundwork well since the retrofit.”

Scott Butkovich, Director of Store Development for

Derek Hileman , VP of Waldinger Service Division
The Waldinger Corporation

Balls Food Stores in Kansas City, KS, was eager to finda high performance and long-term refrigerant
replacement for his existing R-22 systems.

Opteon™ XP40

Refrigerant“The government mandated phaseout of R-22 is entering its

4. Replace filter driersfinal years, and with regulations coming up for refrigerants
with higher global warming potential (GWP), I wanted an

5. Replace critical elastomeric seals

R-22 replacement that was easy to use, required minimal

6. Evacuate and leak checksystem changes, and got me ahead of existing and future

7. Charge with XP40 and label system

potential regulations,” said Scott.
Scott’s local refrigerant wholesaler, Steve Faler, of Key
Refrigeration Supply, knew just the experts to bring in andarranged a meeting with the commercial refrigerationengineers from Chemours (formerly DuPont). As industry
pioneers with more than 85 years’ experience developing
refrigerants, Chemours has helped the HVACR industry

8. Start up, monitor system, and adjust set points“It couldn’t have been simpler,” said Derek. “The actualsystem conversion took just a few hours. The rack systems
have continued to work well since the retrofit, keeping thestore’s meat, produce, ice cream, and other foods fresh. As
an added bonus, the compressor discharge temperature ofthrough previous periods of regulatory transition.

XP40 is so much lower than R-22, the on-demand cooling

The Conversion

R-22 hasn’t kicked on once.”

The team from Balls Food Stores, along with theirmechanical contractor, The Waldinger Corporation; Key
Refrigeration Supply; and Chemours, discussed various
options and decided to conduct their first store trial withOpteon™ XP40 (R-449A) to ensure the conversion andperformance would meet the needs of Balls Food. XP40
is a nonflammable replacement for R-22 that matches thein our low-temp racks that used to run all the time withPerformance Results
In addition to achieving excellent performance while
improving their carbon footprint with a lower GWP andnon-ozone depleting refrigerant, Balls Food and Waldinger
found a significant benefit in the lower discharge
temperature of XP40. As lead technician John Engle fromperformance very closely, with a 27% lower GWP.

Waldinger highlighted, “With R-22 in the low temp rack, weDerek Hileman’s crew from The Waldinger Corporation,

The compressor would run so hot that the oil would burn up,

who performed the retrofit work using the Chemours
Retrofit Guidelines, found the conversion process to bestraightforward with all systems (low and mediumtemperature) starting up, pulling down, and achieving

had a lot of problems with the demand cooling tripping out.
and we had to change the oil at least once a year. With
XP40, the oil is clean as a whistle, and the demand coolingnever turned on—not even in the heat of the summer. The
rack runs reliably now, with nothing more than routine

stable operation quickly.

preventive maintenance calls—it’s great.”

The conversion process included eight easy steps and“We’re thrilled with the success and ease of the Opteon™

was almost identical to their previous experience withR-22 to R-407A conversions:
1. Establish baseline performance of system
2. Change lubricant to POE
3. Recover R-22

XP40 conversion,” said Scott from Balls Food Stores. “Inparticular, we value the ongoing support and collaborationof the Chemours team, Key Refrigeration Supply, and ouroutstanding contractors, The Waldinger Corporation. This
project would not have been possible without it. We’ve
found our R-22 refrigerant solution and will be doing more
retrofits to Opteon™ XP40 soon.”

For more information on the Opteon™ family of refrigerants, or other refrigerants products, visit opteon.com or call (800) 235-7882.
The information set forth herein is furnished free of charge and based on technical data that Chemours believes to be reliable. It is intended for use by persons having technical skill, attheir own risk. Because conditions of use are outside our control, Chemours makes no warranties, expressed or implied, and assumes no liability in connection with any use of thisinformation. Nothing herein is to be taken as a license to operate under, or a recommendation to infringe, any patents or patent applications.
© 2017 The Chemours Company FC, LLC. Opteon™ and any associated logos are trademarks or copyrights of The Chemours Company FC, LLC. Chemours™ and the Chemours Logo aretrademarks of The Chemours Company.
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